The book’s argument extends into the present. It examines the control of movement, land, water, population registries and public revenue; the calculation of food permitted into Gaza; the classification of famine and civilian protection; and the power of digital platforms to determine which Palestinian testimony remains visible. Across these very different systems, one distinction persists: Palestinians may be recognised, represented and administered without being accepted as the source of the authority that governs them.

Combining archival history, political analysis and international law, The Administration of Palestine offers a powerful reinterpretation of the modern Palestinian experience. It argues that the central problem is not an absence of government but a surplus of administration exercised from outside—and that no durable political settlement can emerge until the question of authority is answered by the people whose future is at stake.